Poor Herder Meets With A Watery Grave; Bread earner Gone, Family Left in the Lurch

Dholpur, July 22 :A gruesome incident occurred in Jatav Lalpur village located in Rajasthan’s Dholpur district, recently.  Antesh a native of the village who earned his living by herding  goats, met with a sudden untimely death.  On that fateful Wednesday, Antesh who was grazing his flock in a field decided to take bath in a pond in the vicinity. Substantial time elapsed but he did not resurface.

A little boy who had witnessed the incident grew suspicious and promptly alerted the villagers who summoned the cops. The police in their turn called a team of divers; they plunged into the waters in search of the missing youth.

Meanwhile news of the mishap spread like wildfire and a large number of people rushed to the site of the tragedy. At about four o’ clock in the afternoon, Antesh’s corpse was fished out of the water. Soon, it was sent for post mortem. It was indeed heart wrenching to see Antesh’s widowed mother, seated at the edge of the pond, wailing and bemoaning her fate. Women neighbours tried their utmost to comfort the hapless woman.

The SHO of  Dihuli police station arrived at the spot to conduct investigations. Hectic parleys and interrogation followed;   a new idea regarding the cause of death emerged- Antesh probably got stuck in the heavy layers of mud and slush at the bottom of the pond which further bogged him down and suffocated him.  It came to light that Antesh’s family of six was in dire straits since his father’s  accidental death almost a decade ago. The youth ran the household with his meagre income from milking and herding goats. Himself unschooled, Antesh even managed to educate his siblings.

One can hardly gauge the degree of misfortune which has befallen the bereaved family. With their sole bread earner gone, who knows whether the poor creatures would be able to manage a square meal a day?